Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew both belong to the Semitic language family making them similar languages and the new generations can find them under the tree of the BiDi “Bidirectional“ languages. The structures, pronunciations and words resemble one another. However, they are separate languages.
The word is thought to be derived by contraction from al-ilāh, which means “the god”, and is linguistically related to El (Elohim) [Adoni and Elohim] and Elah, the Hebrew and Aramaic words for God. The word Allah has been used by Arabic people of different religions since pre-Islamic times. Jesus probabbly used same very word we are using for God that is Allah.
One thing that many non-Hebrew speaking Jews and Christians mistake about is the name of GOD Almighty in the Bible. “Yahweh” in Hebrew means “The LORD” or the “The GOD”. It is not a name. Let us look at the following quotations from Christian and Jewish resources:
“Judaism teaches that while God’s name exists in written form, it is too holy to be pronounced. The result has been that, over the last 2000 years, the correct pronunciation has been lost.” (Mankind’s Search for GOD, p. 225).
Here we clearly see that the pronunciation for the original name for GOD Almighty had been lost, and the Jews have no idea what the exact pronunciation is from their Holy Scriptures and resources.
“About 3,500 years ago, God spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Thus shall you speak to the Israelites: The LORD [Hebrew: YHWH], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you: This shall be My name forever, this My appellation for all eternity.’ (Exodus 3:15; Psalm 135:13)” (Mankind’s Search for GOD, p.225).
“….the four Hebrew consonants YHWH (Yahweh) that in their Latinized form have come to be known over the centuries in English as JEHOVAH.” (Mankind’s Search for GOD, p.225).
So the word “YHWH” or “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” is not the ORIGINAL name, but the appellation (title) for the Almighty GOD. This is perfectly fine, because Jews, Christians and Muslims call on to GOD Almighty as “The LORD” or “The GOD”, which means “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” in Hebrew and “Al-Rab” in Arabic. “Al-Rab” in Arabic and “Yahweh” in Hebrew and the other translations in all other languages are indeed GOD Almighty’s title. But they are NOT His original Name!
Let us look at what Exodus 3:15 and Psalm 135:13 from the NIV Bible say: “God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, `The LORD [Notice that they didn’t write Jehovah. “The LORD” in only a title], the God of your fathers–the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob–has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation. (From the NIV Bible, Exodus 3:15)”
“Your name, O LORD, endures forever, your renown, O LORD, through all generations. (From the NIV Bible, Psalm 135:13)”
So as we clearly see from the above Verses from the NIV Bible, the original name for GOD Almighty is not “Yahweh”. The title “The LORD” is only a title and a nick name (if you will) that we give to GOD Almighty. But “Yahweh” is definitely NOT THE ORIGINAL NAME for GOD Almighty.
“Allah” on the other hand is a name. It is the name of GOD Almighty. Below, you will see ample proofs from the Aramaic language that the name of GOD Almighty was indeed “Allah”.
“GOD” in Arabic and Aramaic sound the same, and it is “Allah”.
Jesus peace be upon him spoke Aramaic during his ministry.
“Allah” is GOD’s Name, “Elaw” means “GOD” in Aramaic: How can they be the same?
I clearly proved from the Noble Quran that “Allah” means the Supreme GOD Almighty in Arabic.
How can a title beginning with “the” be a name?
Beside the crystal clear proofs above about Yahweh or Jehovah being just a title or “appellation” (Exodus 3:15) for GOD Almighty, I would like to raise this simple question, and simple common sense test:
How can any title that begins with “the” be a name?
If I call you “the man”, as it is a common slang for a person to be called that here in the US, would that really make your name “the man”?
A Christian just recently told me that in Hebrew, Yahweh not only means “The LORD” or the “The GOD”, but it also means “The Eternal” (according to the New Dictionary of the Bible). That’s all perfect with me.
The Eternal, Yahweh or Jehovah, means “Al-Samad” in Arabic. Allah Almighty called Himself “Al-Samad” in the Noble Quran (Noble Verse 112:2). I am willing to address Allah Almighty from now on by the “Al-Samad” title (Yahweh in Hebrew) and not by “Allah Almighty” (His Holy Name) if that’s going to make Christians understand Islam and embrace it!
How difficult is it to comprehend that a title beginning with “the” can never be a name! Let alone being an original name!
God never said his name was Yahweh YHWH (يحوح or يهوه).
YHWH is the representation of the Hebrew characters into English. … The word “Allah” is very similar to the name Elohim, which means god in Hebrew
Unlike the biblical Yahweh “I AM WHO I AM.” (יהוה) (sometimes misread as Jehovah), he has no personal name, and his traditional 99 names are really epithets. These include the Creator, the King, the Almighty, and the All-Seer. Allah of Muslims can not be same Yahweh of Christians since he is not the father of Jesus and he never had son. Therefore, “Allah” for the Muslims cannot be reconciled with the “Jesus is Allah” of the Arabic Christians. We muslim strongly reject that Jesus is God as mentioned numerous times in the Quran.
“Yahweh” wasn’t even the first thing GOD Almighty was addressed with in the Bible!
Some Christians still insist that GOD Almighty’s original Holy Name was Yahweh. They rely on Exodus 3:15 to prove this nonsense. I clearly proved in the section above that “Yahweh” in Exodus 3:15 was only a title and not a name, and it means “The LORD”, “The GOD” and the “The Eternal” (according to the New Dictionary of the Bible).
Now, let’s assume for a second that “Yahweh” is a name, which is really ridiculous since its English translation starts with “the”. This still doesn’t prove that GOD Almighty’s original name is Yahweh! Exodus 3:15 that Christians are so big on using was revealed to Prophet Moses peace be upon him. How many years are there between Adam and Moses peace be upon them? Probably thousands! If not even millions!
So according to the Christians’ logic, GOD Almighty was Nameless from the time of Adam until the time of Moses where He, the Almighty, supposedly had finally found Himself and His identity. Correct? Wrong! That’s all a bunch of nonsense!
GOD Almighty’s original Holy Name is clearly “Allah” or “Elaw”! Like I said above, when Jesus peace be upon him was put on the cross, he cried to GOD Almighty and said “Eloi”, which is derived from “Elaw” or “Allah”. He didn’t say “Yahwahoi”!
Therefore, any Christian who decides to act stubborn and reject the crystal clear fact that GOD Almighty’s original Holy Name was indeed “Allah”, because of fearing that it would prove Islam to be the faith of Truth, is guilty of sinning against GOD Almighty!
So why then does the Arabic Bible use “Allah” and “Yahweh” for GOD?
A Christian raised this question: Why do Arabic Bibles used “Yahweh” for GOD, if “Yahweh” wasn’t GOD Almighty’s original Name?
Well first of all, the Arabic Bible uses both “Allah” and “Yahweh”. It is important to know that “Yahweh” is not an Arabic word. Just like “The LORD” is also not Arabic either. The proper translation for “Yahweh” in the Arabic Bible should’ve been “Al-Samad” for “The Eternal”, or “Al-Rab” for “The LORD”, depending on which word they wish to choose since Yahweh means both.
So them inserting the word “Yahweh” in the Arabic Bible is stupid and self-contradicting, because if you choose to call GOD Almighty “Yahweh” in Arabic and force the Hebrew word into Arabic, then you can’t call Him “Allah” at the same time! Calling GOD Almighty “Al-Samad” or “Al-Rab” for Yahweh would’ve been a different thing and contradiction-free.
So my response is: The Arabic theologians need a basic lesson in Arabic and Hebrew!
An addition from brother Yusuf; may Allah Almighty always be pleased with him:
“The newest edition by the International Bible Society starts out “fi al-Bid’i khalaqa ALLAH al-samawati wal-ardha.” The normal word for God, moreover, is “Allah,” in the Christian dialects of Arabic as well as in the Jewish dialects….
“(Brother Yusuf telling a Christian) Who said we aren’t? You said “Allah” wasn’t the word for God in the Bible. It starts out right at the beginning and continue throughout. And then you select out a single verse, ignoring the rest of the entire Bible, OT as well as NT. The verse you quoted is also rendered in English as Yahweh, not God; so what is your point? We are talking about the normal designation for the One True God.
You ignored, moreover, that this is also the case in the Christian and Jewish dialects of Arabic. It is also the case in the Christian liturgies, as for instance in the Maronite liturgy. What more do you want? God is Allah; Allah is God, and Allah should be translated, not transliterated.”
To further prove my point, let us look at Genesis 2:4:
“This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- (From the NIV Bible, Genesis 2:4)”
So as you can clearly see, “Yahweh” is clearly a title that means “The LORD” and not a Name for GOD Almighty.
Why did Jesus choose to say the Aramaic “Eloi” to the Hebrew speaking people?
Why did Jesus sacrifice Hebrew and spoke the Aramaic “Eloi” despite the fact that the people around him were Jewish and spoke Hebrew? Because Jesus peace be upon him knew that GOD Almighty’s Holy Name is Allah, and Eloi (my GOD) is derived from it. The Hebrew “Yahweh” (the LORD or the Eternal) was made mandatory for the Jews only. As shown in the first section of the article, the Jews because of their inability to pronounce GOD Almighty’s Holy Name properly were commanded by GOD Almighty to call Him as “The LORD”:
“Judaism teaches that while God’s name exists in written form, it is too holy to be pronounced. The result has been that, over the last 2000 years, the correct pronunciation has been lost.” (Mankind’s Search for GOD, p. 225).
Here we clearly see that the pronunciation for the original name for GOD Almighty had been lost, and the Jews have no idea what the exact pronunciation is from their Holy Scriptures and resources.
But the reason why Jesus called unto GOD Almighty in Aramaic, despite the fact that everyone spoke Hebrew and the Law of the Jews was written in the Hebrew language is because Jesus wanted to call GOD Almighty in the Highest and Most perfect form.
Addressing GOD Almighty as “The LORD” or Yahweh would’ve been only proper to the Hebrew speaking people, the Jews, but not to the Gentiles and all of the non-Jewish people and generations after that.
Hebrew “Allaah” is the closest word to “Allah” and it means Allah:
The following was given to me by Denis; may Allah Almighty guide him to Islam.
The closest Hebrew word to the Arabic Allaah (alif-lam-lam-ha) would be the Hebrew Allah (alef-lamed-lamed-heh), which is used by Hebrew speaking Muslims, and has been used by Arabic Jews. For examples of the Hebrew equivalent of Bismillaah (which is Bshem Allah) see the following link. That is the closest possible Hebrew word to the Arabic Allah. It is the exact same word, and it has been part of Hebrew for at least 15 centuries (though I do concede it was almost certainly adopted from Arabic).
Allah (Creator of all things, omnipotent and merciful) is the only God and therefore must be the same God as the one that the Jews and Christians to worship. Similarly, for some Christians, Allah is just another name for the one God of the universe.
